50 THE PHARAOH OP THE EXODUS 



Minor, and possibly even the south of Italy."^ Allowing, with these 

 writers, that Merenphtah, son of the great Ilameses, is the Pharaoh of 

 the Exodus, which I have not the slightest difficulty in doing, so long 

 as Acencheres Mesphres Thothmosis is not excluded from that unenvi- 

 able position, we find even more intimate connections of Egypt with 

 Greece and Phcooicia.^^* In his time, Gebal or Byblus, Berytus, Sidon, 

 Sarepta and Tyre are described as subject to Egypt. His first enemies, 

 in addition to the Libyans, the Pelnsgian Tyrrhenians, Sicilians and 

 Sardinians, were Pelasgians of Crete, Achaeans of Peloponnesus and 

 Laconians. These statements are made on the authority of monumen- 

 tal evidence of the most unquestionable character. 



The facts of Egyptian supremacy in Phoenicia, and of warfare 

 between Egypt and Greece in the reign of the Pharaoh of the Exodus 

 being thus established, there can be no antecedent improbability in the 

 assumption that the event which terminated his reign and life was 

 known both to Phoenicians and Greeks. To the Phoenicians, as faithful 

 subjects of the Egyptian empire, the news would bring sorrow second 

 only to that of the Egyptians themselves. To many of the Greeks 

 the overthrow of their great enemy would undoubtedly be matter of 

 rejoicing; but those who had taken no part in the warfare between the 

 two peoples would be led by their Phoenician sympathies to join in the 

 general cry of lamentation for the woes of the master of the world. 

 This lamentation might be supposed very naturally to perpetuate itself 

 in rite and story such as are associated with the name of Adonis. 



III. — The circumstances connected with the death of the 

 Pharaoh of the Exodus, his names and parentage, clearly 

 point him out as the Adonis of Phcenicia and Greece, 



The death of the Pharaoh of the Exodus with all his army would of 

 itself be a national calamity not easily forgotten. It would not, how- 

 ever, be a peculiar case, for frequently of many a gallant army that 

 has gone forth in all the pomp and circumstance of war, but a few 

 stragglers have returned to tell the tale of disaster and defeat. The 

 smiting of the first born throughout the whole land, concerning which 



123 -^e have no evidence that the Egyptian power ever extended beyond the confines of 

 Phoenicia and Syria. No Egyptian army, in the ancient times referred to, ever visited Asia 

 Minor, much less Greece or Italy. The Pharaohs met Greeks and Italians in Libya, Egypt, 

 Palestine and southern Syria ; but no proof has yet been given that the said Greeks and Italians 

 were the natives of any other regions than those in which they encountered the Egyptians. If 

 immigrants at aU, they came from the east, and assuredly not from the west. 



121 Lenormant and Chevalier's Manual, i, 256-260. 



